


Nicolò, destati!

by leeizzy



Series: All and More [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Fanart, Hanahaki Disease, Happy Ending, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani is an Incurable Romantic, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Love Language, M/M, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Nicky thinks he's pregnant, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Protectiveness, Temporary Character Death, That Time In Malta, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Whump, that speech tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25672237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeizzy/pseuds/leeizzy
Summary: Nine times Joe woke Nicky up throughout the years. And one time he didn't, (kind of).A collection of pencil sketches and arts and comics and ficlets.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: All and More [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016997
Comments: 18
Kudos: 177





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't speak Italian or Arabic. So please correct me if I make any mistake.

**Destati** : _(antiquated)_ Wake up, arouse.

C _ontemporary:_ **Svegliati.**

In 12th century, Italian was not even a proper language. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around the 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry, and kept evolving throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. 

It was not just as simple as Yusuf learnt Italian for Nicolo. Imagine they'd learnt to speak Italian 'together', all those dialects and modern variations through out the millennium. And in their intimate moments, they slipped into their old-fashioned words.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last line were from this fic 'I am Never Without' by Onlymystory - https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714219  
> Please check it out and cry with me.

_"Promise me if we're still single by the time the other's not dead yet and still couldn't die, we'd hunt each other down for sport."_

_~***~_


	3. Chapter 3

‘ _How to wake Nicky up_ ’, properly, according to Joe.

Also, note: remember his longsword, always.

_~***~_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by kishuku's fic. Please check it out. Cause I need someone to scream with me over it. (╯ಥ ‿ ಥ)╯彡┻━┻  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25365178

_~***~_

Some people may think Joe's speech was cheesy and unnecessary. Perhaps it would be, if he and Nicky had been an ordinary modern couple with a normal domestic life for a thousand years. 

For gods' sake, they'd dreamed about each other, they met at the crusades, spent gods knew how many years to track down to kill, just to see the other again on the battlefield. And when they're immortal, like Booker, how long did it take, for them to be resented, betrayed by their own brothers, their own friends, families, and possibly by their religions; not just because of what they'd become, but also because of who they are, who they loves. 

Yusuf and Nicolo had gone through hell of death and destruction all those years, just to be chased and hunted down. Things had changed, but the one constant in their lives were each other, the enemy they couldn't kill, the only person who knew what the other was going through, the one they turned to when they'd had no where else to go. And from years of being reluctant companions, learning each other's language, protecting themselves from danger, Joe and Nicky had realized they weren't that different after all. Ethnics, religions, or past, didn't matter, they all want the same thing.

Their love bloomed in the dessert, in hardship and conflict. It had never been that instant-lightning-at-first-sigh kind of love. It's an attraction, a slow burn that's grown brighter and more desperate, for years they fought side by side for what they believed was right and to find a way back to each other, time after time. When will be their last time, like Lykon? Will they rise again or leave behind the love of their life with a grief and heartache like Andy's? Or will they be captured, and separated, unable to die, like Quynh, having the last and only option to end all the suffer being taken away centuries ago? Their invulnerability makes their pain greater. Their immortality makes them even more human. 

And that's why nobody stops them from being incurable romantics. They are each other's all and more.


	5. Chapter 5

_~***~_

Did anybody know that forehead touching moment when they're captured was improvised?

Great, isn't it?

What even greater was when the henchmen tried to push them apart, as if they wouldn't find a way to be with each other again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this smol precious bean by j_gabrielle: (◡‿◡✿)  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/25527079

_~***~_

Do they love the ocean? Does Nicky love Malta?

How much he misses it, the view of sunset, the sound of their morning. Does he get _seasick_ , the way he gets homesick, the way he loves Joe?

Sometimes he could get stress out. So much so, the feeling leaves him nauseated. Like a pregnant woman. 

Knowledge about those subjects (medical, that was) in their early days weren't exactly quite something. Medieval Christians weren't always the brightest.

The question is: 'What happened at Malta?'


	7. Chapter 7

_~***~_

Nicolo used to love sparring with Yusuf. But he also hated it. Because Nicolo loved him.

He loved the way sunlight danced on his skin, on the curve of his scimitar. Sometimes it's trapped in Yusuf's eyes. glinting behind the flutters of those lashes. He was blinded by it and he just couldn't look away. It caught Nicolo's mind countless time.

Nicolo hid those moments in his heart. Like all the times he looked at the night sky full of star with Yusuf lying across from him. So familiar, and so out of reach. The taste of those words was wine on his tongue. God! How much Nicolo wanted him to know. How much he dreaded Yusuf would know. How he scared Yusuf already knew but didn't have anything to say.

An internal life of this... But at least he'd still have in his life a night sky full of star.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can make some time, here's a 65k word fic from qqueenofhades https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428517

_~***~_

The past feels as if it’s another life for the immortals. But Nicky still dreams about them. He can’t ever forget, all the terrible things that happened to the love of his life.

Nicky remembers the lives he and Yusuf had built together. He remembers how each and every one of them got destroyed. Their first home. A few decades are nothing to them. But Nicky will always remember, the time they were truly happy after so much time trying to kill their destiny.

The day war came to their place, Nicolo and Yusuf fought. They always do. But in the end, their immortal hands can’t hold on. History continues. They watched cities burn, they watched people die. So they held tight to each other and ran to another place with the hope that death and chaos wouldn’t reach them. Sometimes Nicolo thought he could have gone mad with anger and the thirst for revenge, if he hadn’t had the love of his life. And then sometimes, Nicky dreams about his first crusade... All the terrible things ‘his people’ did to Yusuf and his first home.

He will always try to say sorry. Nicolo would cry. Nicky won’t, Joe will never let him. In many ways, in as many languages as Joe can: “I don’t care, my love. I don't need those. You are my home.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immortal husbands’ many love languages. They’re kinda like a very spicy version of The Ineffable Husbands. (ʘ‿ʘ✿). Maybe that’s why I love them so much.

_~***~_

Nicky wouldn’t exactly call himself a romantic. At least not in the way Joe is. He can’t offer the love of his life flowery poems, or lovely words. So what if he can be a little protective of Joe sometimes... Especially since Joe had refused Nicky’s dying-many-painful-deaths-for-him as a quite-touching-form-of-showing-affection a number of hundred years ago.

One doesn’t just simply go from killing each other (again and again) to declaring love overnight, or decades if you must know, thank you very much. So excuse him, if Nicolò could be quite dense sometimes.

‘I love you.’ can be just a tad too much. Yet barely enough at the same time. 


	10. Chapter 10

~***~

At the time, Nicolò hadn’t known why or when it’d started. (He still don’t though.) He’d heard stories, of course. He saw it happened to his sister. How something so beautiful, and alluring, suffocated you little by little from the inside. And one day, he saw a flower on Yusuf.

Young Nicolò couldn’t understand why his sister had took so long to tell her love. He’d promised to himself he wouldn’t even waste a minute. Just for now, he hoped for someone to cut it out. But how on earth could he ever. It’s his heart, his love. The love of his life. Or lives, since they couldn’t exactly die. Yusuf would beg him to, every time. And every time Nicolò would ask why he kept flowers in his sleeve. 

Was his start before or after Yusuf’s, for the life of him, he couldn’t tell. That insufferable, ridiculous, dramatic man. Always wears his heart on his sleeve. Nicolò had wondered day and night who that’d been. So he could kill the bastard that had thrown away something he would die to have for just one day. He did his best pretending he wasn’t staring, whenever Yusuf looked back at him, with shining stars in his eyes, and a smile that’s somehow brighter than the desert sun. Thousand of unspoken word stabbed Nicolò to blind. He seemed proud of it, the flowers, Nicolò had thought. Not like him. He collected and hid every single petal that could have seen the light of day. Perhaps that’s why it killed him first. Dying in Yusuf’s arm felt like the only way he would die from then on. How irony. The way those hands killed people that hurt him. How painful, the way they’d held him when he couldn’t breath properly, as if he’d been the most cherished thing in the world. 

Nicolò didn’t mind. Dying like that for eternity. Even if he’d die for real loving Yusuf someday. But in the end everything has to change. Oh the love of his life and his thousands flowery words. Because of course it had to be. 

No matter how silly Nicolò could be sometimes, he’s in love with a brave man.

**Author's Note:**

> All done!!! (for now) Let me know which chapter is your favorite drawing style so I can start working on part 2 ^_^  
> I also posted these on insta and tumblr. If these are hard to view...  
> https://leeizzy.tumblr.com/


End file.
